To wonder if there are supporters of grammar schools who didn't go to grammar schools themselves

[WildebeestH]

Just that really. The only friends I have who support grammar schools went to grammar schools themselves. I'm intrigued to know if there are many people who support them having not been to a grammar (or other selective) school and if so why?

"Agnd people have an idealised version of comps which doesn't match reality"

No. Nobody says that comprehensives are perfect, or all good or anything like that. What I am saying is that it is the only system with the possibility of fairness. And which sometimes achieves fairness. A selective system just can't, under any circumstances, approach fairness.

To play devil's advocate, the introduction of academies was supposed to be the "let's make schools better for everyone" game-changer.

I don't have unrealistic expectations of comps. I do know that mine got me to Oxford and that my daughters' one appears to be educating them damn well.

My dad's family were poor, proper grinding poverty poor. Never enough to eat poor, raising six kids in a two bedroom flat with a bathroom shared with the other flats on the floor poor. Closer to Dickensian poverty than to some modern definitions of poverty that class not having a overseas holiday and disposable income to be pissed away on take away coffee poor. But half of those six kids went to grammar and the others would have done if they'd passed their 11+. My godmother and several other of my mums friends went from the council estate in their small rural market town. My mother in law and my tutor at uni both went to grammar from poor backgrounds in northern mill towns. Better off children may have had a better help and support at home and broader horizons and thus be more likely to pass the 11+ but poor kids did pass and did go to grammar. Some families might have seen it as "not for the likes of us" or been put off but the cost of uniform (but you can select without having an expensive uniform) but if you were bright it could be a way to change your destiny. The political leaders who came from the grammar/secondary mod. era were often lower middle class kids who'd been to grammar - fast forward to now and most of the politicos are schooled after the comprehensive revolution and guess what most of them have had a fee paying education (including Jeremy Corbin at primary level) social mobility took a huge hit when grammar were replaced. There should be different schools for different children - not better who says learning latin is better than learning a craft? But one size tends to fit no-one.

I started off in a secondary modern or 'high' and moved to a grammar because the former did not have a great scope of GCSE/A levels. The difference between the two was rather vast and reinforced my desire to send my dc to the grammar.

And people have an idealised version of comps which doesn't match reality.

Really? I don't think I have ever met anyone who has an idealised view of comps. What people need to realise is that the reason why our schools are currently in a bad state is not the fact that they are comps.

"In fact my DD was left with concussion after one such boy hit her over the head (intentionally) with a bat. Apparently the school felt that it was just one of those things - he was from a disadvantaged family you know..."

This is terrible, obviously and horrible for your Dd. But what if that boy (or one who behaved like him ended up at grammar? With your Dd! It would still come down to behaviour management. And what happens to well behaved, hardworking kids who don't make it across the selective divide to grammar? Will they just get hit over the head?

The issue is how to handle violent disruptive pupils so that other kids can succeed. That's about discipline in the school, not selective education,

Unless selective education is a front for saving certain kids. If others are just left to endure it, if their education and freedom from bullying is deemed less important, then we are back to social elitism.

" modern definitions of poverty that class not having a overseas holiday and disposable income to be pissed away on take away coffee poor."

Sorry- you lost me there. And lost me further at "learning a craft"

In fact my DD was left with concussion after one such boy hit her over the head (intentionally) with a bat.

Sympathies to your daughter. But is this supposed to be an argument for grammar schools? So it's ok to be stuck with kids who hit you over the head as long as you're not bright enough to get into grammar school?

Bright kids are not somehow morally more deserving, so that they should be given the best of everything just because of their I.Q. all kids deserve the best education that can be provided for them.

A craft as in something you can do for a living Bertrand as in becoming a joiner/ cabinet maker like one of my uncles who went to to use his education every day in life to make a very good living unlike his sibling who learnt latin and never used after they left school. Which was the "better" education? As for the definition of poverty there was a thread a couple if months ago linking to a poverty calculator that included annual holidays and casual eating out budget of over a £1000 per year. % of average income is also a crap measure of poverty. If your mortgage is paid off and your kids have left home a below average salary may mean you are comparatively well off someone with a rent bill and three kids would be unable to cope on the same money.

Not rtft but me.

Product of a very seedy 1970s comp . I achieved because my mate and I taught ourselves. Bullied. Carry baggage from then now.

We are lucky to have a grammar area and the kids are academically inclined. Grammar schools served them well.

However we did look at the comps and it isn't a disaster, one in particular was very nurturing. There were however all set up for the BTEC / vocational training routes. The place not to be would be say a kid who was academic but who's parents " didn't believe in grammars". They werent set up for them. Caveat this was 7yrs ago.

And my late mum was born in 1928 and real example of social mobility brought about by education. A miners daughter who became a primary head teacher despite having one gym slip from 11-15yrs as they couldn't afford new uniform.

My dad went to a technical school and left aged 15 having leaned to make furniture etc. He had a " portfolio career " as they would say now - but did o levels at night school in 1950 aged 30 and went to teacher training college. He was a real " oddity" for his generation as mum lead the household financially !

No I'm not suggesting for a moment that poor behaviour management is entirely within comp schools. Rather that her treatment within the whole ethos of the school came across as you can sort yourself out - we are just interested in the disadvantaged here.

That's how it came across after several incidents.
My Child with Sen however was far more nurtured. Warm, facilitating, supporting, extra work...
Academic child - cold and hostile towards her.
The difference was huge.

Focusing on just the poorer disadvantaged members of society is just as unfair as giving extra to those of academic ability.
All should be helped to succeed.

How do kids in grammars get the best of everything exactly? Many are in crumbling old buildings,they get the same per child and as a school often have less money going in not more. Our grammars get an eye watering amount less than comps in London even though it is a low aspiration area and have done for years.

If you want to complain about budget unfairness look at how underfunded some areas are compared to others and how they have been for years.

If you don't think grammar schools give bright pupils the best, what is the actual point of them? What does a grammar school system achieve that rigorous setting would not (aside from unnecessary segregation, massive unfairness through tutoring, the possibility that a child is 'grammar school material' in some subjects but not others, and a judgement taken at a young age which will be difficult to reverse, unlike changing set)?

HeadOfTheHive; it sounds horrible. And in truth I think the heavy pressure schools have been under to get good stats on the A*-C rating has encouraged this, in some schools. Progress 8 and looking at how schools do in supporting able pupils to get an 8 or 9 might change this!

An ethos,teaching style,atmosphere and vigour we wanted and the other schools we looked round didn't have.

If our local comps had offered the same we'd have sent them there. They didn't. It's horses for courses. Several kids from my dd's primary class didn't go to the feeder school but a mixture of other schools their parents preferred. Really don't see the difference.

Why do all pupils not deserve a good ethos, teaching style, atmosphere and rigour? They do. And that is why we should be improving schools for everyone, not just shielding the brightest from the problems in the system. I say again, bright children are no more deserving of a better education than less bright ones are. And I say that as a parent of very bright children.

Grammars offer not something better, just different. An emphasis and understanding of different things. An understanding that an interest in academic subjects is not weird.

I do understand the "unfairness" and arbitrary cut off and the late developer problem and these are disadvantages of that model. However comps do have disadvantages too, in terms of their set up.

Comp parents do still tutor their children though, it's not specific to sector.

And bright children are no less deserving of a good education too.

But many parents actually wouldn't give you a thank you for the atmosphere,ethos and vigour in grammar schools. Have you not read the education threads on MN.

Kids and parents differ,one size does not suit all.

Agree green. There are hundreds of thousands of parents and their children who really don't give a tinker's cuss about a grammar school education....infact, education in general.

It's just not really on the radar, or in their life plan. School is seen as something to just 'get through'.

If I have a rabbit and you have cat and "the system" says free pet food for all and gives us a bag rabbit food it is "better" for me but I haven't been given something "better" than the thing you have been given just more appropriate. It would be great for my husband to be given a place at a technical collage but rubbish for me to be given one I'm a book learner he's a doer, I'm an arts graduate, he's an engineer. Having different types education for different types of people doesn't make one "better" than the other it makes more appropriate.

Ok so a child who at age 11 got a few marks lower than the pass rate on an 11+ paper needs a whole different ethos and teaching method?

What (inherent) 'disadvantages in the set-up' of comps compare with the inherent unfairness you admit exist in the grammar school system? A comprehensive school is simply a non-selective school. There is nothing inherently bad about that. The things that are currently wrong in schools can be changed. Whereas a grammar school system is inherently unfair, for the reasons you mention (among others).